Today sees the launch in the UK of AlphaTran Capital, a global long/short equity fund with a value and large capitalisation bias. The fund will aim to achieve a 20 per cent unleveraged annual return from a fundamentally driven investment process underpinned by input from industry sources. Individual company shorts are expected to be a key profit contributor. The team at AlphaTran has been constructed around Damien Tran, an ex-partner at TCI, along with Joseph Cusworth on the operations side and Adrian Kowal on the investment side, both also from TCI. The chief executive officer will be Christophe Beauvilain, who was previously a partner of Phylon and before that an executive director at Goldman Sachs for seven years.